1 harlem’s artistic community in the 1930s

Not to know the Negro on the group and historical level is to rob him of his rightful share in the American h­ e r i t a g e .

j. saunders redding, On Being Negro in America (1951)

early student years only by dingy areaway entrances to the littered backyard about which the rectangle of tenements had been built. . . . Sometime during 1930 Rosalee Lawrence brought her Half of all the tenants are on relief and pass their days and children, Jacob and his younger siblings William and Ger- nights lolling in the dreary entrances of the 40 apartments aldine, from their foster homes in Philadelphia to live with which house them or sitting in the ten by fifteen foot rooms her at 142 West 143rd Street in New York’s Harlem. Jacob which many of them share with a luckless friend or two. Un- was either twelve years old or thirteen, the age he turned less they are fortunate their single windows face on narrow on September 7, 1930.1 courts or into a neighbor’s kitchen and the smell of cooking Harlem, an area north of Central Park, had originally and the jangle of a dozen radios is always in the air.3 been populated by German Americans, who built elegant brownstone townhouses but then left when African Amer- Harlem, much larger and more densely crowded than icans began to expand into the area in the early twentieth Philadelphia, opened the eyes of the impressionable century.2 By the early 1930s many of the brownstones young Lawrence (Map 1). had been converted into one- or two-room kitchenettes Five years before Lawrence arrived, in 1925, the writer to accommodate the burgeoning population. The city and educator James Weldon Johnson had spelled out block Lawrence lived on—142nd Street to 143rd Street, Harlem’s special qualities from an insider’s point of view, bordered by Lenox and Seventh Avenues—was described in sharp contrast to the New York Herald Tribune report- in a New York Herald Tribune article in 1934 as er’s account:

tenanted exclusively by Negroes. On its four sides the area Harlem is indeed the great Mecca for the sight-seer, the presents a front of gray and red brick fire escapes broken ­pleasure-seeker, the curious, the adventurous, the enterprising,

FIG 1 Jacob Lawrence at work on a Frederick Douglass series panel, c. 1939. Photo: Kenneth F. Space, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Harmon Foundation Collection.

1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 8-9 8/14/09 5:31:53 PM the ambitious and the talented of the whole Negro world. . . . Lawrence was fortunate to meet Alston (Fig. 4). At W 147 St 1 Harlem is not merely a Negro colony or community, it is a city Columbia Alston had been briefly enrolled in a pre-archi- —Bad break Please advise within a city, the greatest Negro city in the world. It is not a tecture course but switched to the liberal arts curriculum BH/ICS W 145 St

e slum or a fringe, it is located in the heart of Manhattan and 8 e and graduated in 1929. He spent at least a year teaching N 4 Av Bradhurst occupies one of the most beautiful and healthful sections of at Utopia House in the arts and crafts program originally

Convent Ave Convent 2 H the city. It is not a ‘quarter’ of dilapidated tenements, but is

Av combe combe W 143 St A 3 R set up by James Wells, also a Columbia graduate (class L made up of new-law apartments and handsome dwellings, with E 9

Edge M of 1925). Alston returned to Columbia after a year or two

St Nicholas Nicholas St R Hamiton Terr Hamiton well-paved and well-lighted streets. It has its own churches, 5 I 10 W 141 St V to complete a master’s degree at Teachers College. E R social and civic centers, shops, theaters and other places of In interviews during the 1960s Alston recalled the cir- amusement. And it contains more Negroes to the square mile than any other spot on earth. A stranger who rides up mag- cumstances of his first encounter with Lawrence and his nificent Seventh Avenue on a bus or in an automobile must be determination to let his pupil’s innate talent develop. To City W 138 St College 6 Edgecombe Ave Edgecombe 7 struck with surprise at the transformation which takes place Harlan Phillips, he remarked: W 137 St SSt.t. after he crosses One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street. Begin- Nicholas 9 HARLEM

Amsterdam Ave Amsterdam W 136 St PParkark HOSPITAL ning there, the population suddenly darkens and he rides I took a job as a director of a boys’ club in a slum area in Har- 8 11 10 W 135 St through twenty-five solid blocks where the passers-by, the 12 lem. It was a very small operation. . . . You had kids of ages— W 134 St shoppers, those sitting in restaurants, coming out of theaters, five to 16, 17—which made it very hard to develop a pro- 18

standing in doorways and looking out of windows are practi- e gram. . . . Among the kids that I had was . . . Jacob Lawrence.

Av cally all Negroes.4 This kid was not the usual mischievous, hell-raising kid. . . . nt nt

ve Jake . . . had this very curious vision that just fascinated me.

Con If I gave him crayons or whatever materials were available, W 130 St Like Johnson, young Lawrence was attracted to the magic 13 there was always a very personal, strange kind of expression. of Harlem’s beauty and vitality, with neighbors and strang-

St Nicholas Terr Nicholas St I don’t think at that time he had ever seen African masks or ers moving past each other through the spaces of stoops, St Nicholas Ave Nicholas St

5th Ave anything like that, but he used to do these fantastic masks . . .

Madison Ave Madison sidewalks, and streets. Lawrence would later say, in a W 127 St in brilliant colors. I kept him supplied with things and sensed 8th Ave (Frederick Douglass Blvd) Douglass (Frederick 8th Ave 14 Ave Park

Lexington Ave Lexington remark familiar to his interviewers: “It was a very cohesive W 126 St Blvd) X (Malcolm Ave Lenox even that early . . . that this was a kid to leave alone. Don’t let

15 Ave) Jr. Powell Clayton (Adam 7th Ave 17 community. You knew people. You didn’t know their him start painting like you, don’t start cramming him with W 125 St 16 19 names, but you’d pass people on the street and see the classical ideas about art.11

20 face[s] over and over again. It was that kind of a com- St Nicholas W 123 St MounMountt munity. It was a very vital, exciting community. At least it To another interviewer, Albert Murray, Alston added, “He Morris

Morningside Ave Morningside ParkPark was for me, and from what I hear from many other people didn’t work like the other kids. He knew pretty definitely MorningMorningsideside Av my age[.] [Y]ou knew the police, you knew the firemen, what he wanted to do and it didn’t relate to the typical PParkark e Manhattan Ave Manhattan W 119 St you knew the teachers, the people on the street. You knew kind of thing that children of that age do. I’m glad I had the peddlers. That’s what it was for me” (Figs. 2 and 3). the sense at that time to realize that this kid had a very Central Harlem, ca. 1930s–1940s. Rosalee Lawrence, sometime after her children arrived unusual, unique kind of talent, and a way of seeing things.

East/west blocks increase by 100 numbers per block. in Harlem, enrolled them in arts and crafts classes at the I wouldn’t even let him watch me paint. And I tried my Walking north or south along the avenues takes about 20 minutes to cover 20 blocks. after-school program of Utopia Children’s House, located best just to protect this very unique quality in Jake.”12 Mount Morris Park is now Marcus Garvey Park. at 170 West 130th Street, in Central Harlem. Founded in At Utopia House, Lawrence was introduced to soap

1 Lawrence’s temporary home in 1940, 292 W 147th 11 Old Harlem YMCA, 181 W 135th 1927 by Daisy C. Reed, its first director, and other social carving, metalwork, woodwork, and painting. Painting 2 Augusta Savage’s first studio, 163 W 143rd 12 New Harlem YMCA (built in 1930s), 180 W 135th progressives in Harlem, Utopia Children’s House provided particularly appealed to Lawrence; to Elton Fax he re- 3 Lawrence’s first Harlem address, 1930, 142 W 143rd 13 Utopia House, 170 W 130th activities and free lunches for the children of working called his early attempts at making art unencumbered by 4 Lawrences’ home, 1942–43, 72 Hamilton Terr. 14 Langston Hughes’s home, 20 E 127th 6 5 “306” Alston/Bannarn Studio, 306 W 141st 15 Braddock Hotel, site of 1943 Harlem Riot, 272 W 126th mothers. Jacob took lessons from the Harlem artist rules and academic protocols: “My first paintings con- 6 Abyssinian Baptist Church, 136–42 W 138th 16 Lawrence’s studio in 1940, 33 W 125th Charles Alston, a recent graduate of Columbia College, sisted of geometric designs, done from my imagination, 7 Ethiopian School of Research (Charles Seifert), 313 W 137th 17 Apollo Theater, 253 W 125th walking each day the brief distance to Utopia House from with poster paints on paper. I was playing with forms and 8 Harlem Artists Guild, 321 W 136th 18 New York Amsterdam News (office in 1930s), 2293 7th Ave. 9 August Savage’s second studio, 239 W 135th 19 Harlem Community Art Center, 290 Lenox PS 89, at Lenox Avenue (now Malcolm X Boulevard) and color with no other thing in mind. Then I began painting 10 NY Public Library, Harlem branch, 103 W 135th 20 First Harlem Music and Art Center (1937), 1 W 123rd 135th Street, where he was in the fifth grade.7 masks out of my imagination. It was only later that I began

harlem’s artistic community in the 1930s 11

1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 10-11 8/14/09 5:31:56 PM As the art historian Elizabeth Hutton Turner has pointed out, Alston no doubt conveyed to Lawrence many of the precepts of the influential artist and educator Al- fred Wesley Dow, who had chaired the Fine Arts Program at Columbia’s Teachers College from 1904 until his death in 1922.15 Dow’s book Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for Use of Students and Teachers (1899; revised, 1913 and 1938) served as a guide for a genera- tion of artists, particularly those trained at Columbia.16 Inspired by his own study of Japanese art, Dow taught students first to learn and experiment with the “three structural elements” of art: line (and its relationship to space), then notan (“darks and lights in harmonic rela- tions”), and finally color. Dow described notan as the pat- terning of lights and darks in harmonies and contrasts, not as light and shadow or chiaroscuro. The notan was to effect a harmonious pattern, not to simulate an illusion of three-dimensional depth. Dow’s method differed from tra­ ditional academic art teaching that stressed representa- tion, especially life drawing, as the basis for art. Whereas students in traditional art academies were first taught to draw as realistically as they could from still life objects, plaster casts of antique statuary fragments, or the live Fig 4 Charles Alston in his studio, 1930s. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Harmon Foundation Collection. model, for Dow, “mere accuracy has no art-value what- ever. Some of the most pathetic things in the world are the pictures or statues whose only virtue is accuracy. The bare truth may be a deadly commonplace.”17 Dow instead working out of my own experience. I built street scenes urged exercises for students, such as copying the lines, out of corrugated boxes—taking them to familiar spots in light-dark patterns, and colors in textiles and rugs, as a the street and painting houses and scenes on them, re- way to develop an artistic sensibility (Fig. 5).18 creating as best I could a three-dimensional image of Pattern became an important element in Lawrence’s those spots. And then I began to gradually work freely on compositions, as the artist explained in a 1968 interview: paper and with poster color.”13 To another interviewer, “I look around this room . . . and I see pattern. I don’t see Lawrence elaborated: “There was a lot of theatre equip- you. I see you as a form as it relates to your environment. ment at Utopia. I got absorbed in working on stage sets I see that there’s a plane, you see, I’m very conscious of and in making masks. Pictures of Persian rugs and Moor- these planes, patterns.”19 Lawrence’s procedure as an ish tiles fascinated me and I started to cover sheets of artist followed the Dow method: he first drew on the sup- paper with crayoned webs of small, complicated, geomet- port (whether paper or a gessoed panel), then painted in ric repeat-patterns. I was fascinated by patterns from the the dark colors (which as a contrast to the white support Fig 2 View of 125th Street, looking west from Seventh Avenue, 1943. Photographs and Prints outset.”14 Even though Alston claimed not to have taught would help construct the light-dark pattern), and finally Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lawrence academic methods, and Lawrence himself re- filled in the lighter colors to achieve a harmony. Lenox and Tilden Foundations. called his own complete freedom to create at Utopia Besides the basic elements of line, light-dark pattern, Fig 3 Sid Grossman, Children Playing on Sidewalk, 1939. Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and House, Alston’s own Teachers College training would serve and color, Dow wanted students to “look for character . . . Tilden Foundations. the younger artist well. and to value power in expression above success in

harlem’s artistic community in the 1930s 13

1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 12-13 8/14/09 5:31:57 PM and the necessary unity of the arts with the activities, the sounds, and smells of Harlem itself as he hurried from objects, and the scenes of everyday life. They have insisted school to the after-school program at Utopia House to that the teaching of the arts should not be relegated to the home, and, on Sundays, to the Abyssinian Baptist Church frills and the extras, but that it is central in any system of at West 138th Street, where he and his family listened to education. They have shown that art education, like art itself, the inspiring sermons of Adam Clayton Powell Sr.28 involves activity, that art appreciation can best be taught He confessed to the artist Elton Fax that in Harlem he through doing.24 seldom played with other children:

Dewey’s lectures and writings, particularly his book Art I’d been used to more space such as we had in Philadelphia. as Experience (1934), helped shape the discourse about When I played marbles there, we played in large open lots. art as an activity, a social responsibility, and a commu- Here the tenement kids had learned to play in the cramped nity endeavor. Indeed, Dewey’s goal in his book was “to quarters of the gutters and I wasn’t used to that. New York restore continuity between the refined and intensified City games took on the character of the environment. Stick forms of experience that are works of art and the every- ball played in the narrow side streets, with parked cars and Fig 5 Page from Arthur Wesley Dow, Composi- day events, doings, sufferings that are universally recog- manhole covers for bases, was strange and foreign to me. So tion: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for nized to constitute experience.”25 He and his followers I withdrew from much of that kind of activity. I was thirteen, the Use of Students and Teachers, 1938. and children entering adolescence find it more difficult to rejected the separation of the high arts from the popular adjust than when they are younger.29 arts; the goal was to stimulate creativity in everyone. The Dow and Dewey influences coalesced in Alston’s drawing.”20 For Alston, and in fact for any teacher setting ­fellows at Mike’s [Henry Bannarn’s 306 studio].” She Instead, he stepped back to become an observer of the encouragement of Lawrence to see the artistic qualities up lessons in a children’s after-school program, such exer- assured her readers, “I have always prided myself that I Harlem environment. He saw and heard the street-corner of line, light-dark pattern, and color in his everyday expe- cises were far simpler and no doubt produced quicker and urged Jacob Lawrence not to worry about whether his orators (see Figs. 122 and 123), who stood atop soap boxes rience at home and in the streets of Harlem. Lawrence more satisfying results than traditional perceptual studio work was like that of others around him.”22 Lawrence’s and ladders and harangued their audiences about com- later recalled to Samella Lewis: drawing exercises. And since Alston recognized Lawrence’s style merged Dow’s art-for-composition’s-sake meth­ods munism, socialism, black nationalism, and religion. He uncanny sense of design, he would naturally steer the with his own commitment to the representation of watched kids playing in the streets, mothers and fathers My mother decorated her house with colors, we were sur- youth toward developing his compositional skills. ­content—to portraying the social life of Harlem and to hurrying to work, mourners walking to funeral homes (see rounded by them. This was common for people in our eco- This nonacademic method of conceiving pictures first understanding “art as experience,” as John Dewey Fig. 24), icemen delivering great blocks of ice to sweltering nomic and social level. I can’t say that it was common as design structures would stay with Lawrence through- advocated. tenement residents, evictions of families for nonpayment throughout the Harlem community—there were families in out his career. Early on he developed his signature style Turner was the first to make the connection to another Harlem that were very affluent. I didn’t know those people. I of rent, blind men tapping their way along sidewalks (see of working with descriptive lines, patterns of light and Columbia Teachers College influence that filtered through only knew people on our economic and social level, poor Fig. 25), prostitutes leaning against lamp posts (see Fig. dark, and a limited palette of flat, unmodulated colors for Alston to Lawrence: the social pragmatism of John Dew- people. And like other poor people in Harlem we used a lot of 121). All these would eventually become the subjects of composing his pictures, for example, Halloween Sand ey.23 Dewey and his followers believed that both the pro- color to decorate our houses. We had a lot of decorations, his art, but at the time he focused on acquiring greater Bags, 1937 (see Fig. 22). When interviewers later asked cess of making art and the appreciation of art enriched including paper flowers and things like that. This was a part facility in designing compositions of line, pattern, and him about his distinctive style, he would often say: “I the lives of individuals and, by extension, the community. of my cultural experience, so it is reflected in my­paintings. 26 color; painting masks; and creating the three-dimensional didn’t think about it. It was all I could do. I couldn’t do In 1939 Holger Cahill, director of the Federal Art Project stage tableaux from cardboard shoe boxes at Utopia anything else. I didn’t know of any other way to paint. So (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), deliv- The art historian Leslie King-Hammond, drawing on the House. it wasn’t an intellectual process. . . . I was encouraged by ered a tribute to Dewey at the philosopher’s eightieth obser vations of the anthropologist and novelist Zora Neale When he stopped going to Utopia House after a couple various people. They didn’t try to change my style.”21 We birthday celebration. He emphasized the high regard in Hurston about “the urge to adorn” among working-class of years, he spent the after-school hours helping to sup- know of only one instance when he expressed doubts which educational leaders held Dewey: black families, summarizes the aesthetic prevailing in the port his family by delivering newspapers and working in about his unique style—when he confided to the artist Harlem community: “This penchant for decoration, spring- a laundry and a print shop.30 He nevertheless kept at his John Dewey and his pupils and followers have been of the and poet Gwendolyn Bennett that he might be disadvan- ing from the poorer segments of the black population, was greatest importance in developing American resources in the art, as he later told the radio personality Randy Good- taged by not having mastered the classical techniques of arts, especially through their influence on the school systems one facet of the quest for an aesthetic ideal in the black man: “I was at Utopia House for about two years. Then I 27 academic drawing. In an article of 1947 Bennett recalled of this country. They have emphasized the importance and community in the 1930s.” went out and started to work on my own. I got to know Lawrence’s words: “I’m worried about the fact that no pervasiveness of the aesthetic experience, the place of the We can imagine that that nascent aesthetic experience other young artists in Harlem . . . we sort of helped each matter how I try I just can’t draw like the rest of the arts as part of the significant life of an organized community, for Lawrence also included taking in the forms, colors, other.”31

14 harlem’s artistic community in the 1930s harlem’s artistic community in the 1930s 15

1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 14-15 8/14/09 5:31:58 PM In 1933 Lawrence returned to study with Charles Alston. Once basic needs were cared for, the next issue was cording to McMahon, the CAA “petitioned the Emergency proposed initiatives and potential teachers to run them.45 “I was trying my hand at everything . . . even designing jobs. Harlem civic leaders pressed the city government to Work Bureau of the Gibson Committee to create a depart- She hired Harlem photographer James L. ­Allen to take masks. One day I ran into Alston, and he told me he was end policies of segregation and open up jobs for African ment to put the unemployed artist to work.”39 Harr y Knight photographs to document the workshops’ activities for giving a course at the library. He asked me to stop by. I Americans; one result was that 110 subway jobs became became the supervisor for the overall CAA art program publicity purposes and helped organize ­exhibitions where went around with a lot of my things. . . . He got very excited. available when the Eighth Avenue subway began con- and acted as liaison between the CAA and other organiza- Harlem artists’ work could be shown.46 In 1934 Brady ar- He said it was original stuff. He advised me to look struction.36 Another concern emerged: If there were no tions. Pollak took charge of the teaching program, which ranged for the CAA to co-sponsor a traveling Harmon around . . . take the material at hand . . . and develop it.”32 jobs, what would fill the idle hours of the unemployed? was carried out in neighborhood houses, and McMahon exhibition, one that subsequently antagonized many Har- Lawrence would now take classes on a more advanced Free classes and workshops, which had traditionally been oversaw the hiring of artists to paint or restore murals.40 lem artists because of Brady’s patronizing attitudes.47 and institutionally organized level than at Utopia House— offered by settlement houses, seemed a good solution, Mildred Constantine, McMahon’s young secretary in the thanks, in part, to the art workshop programs set up in and these were set up in local churches with the help of CAA offices, worked in the exhibition program.41 All four 42 Harlem as partnerships, variously, of the College Art As- organizations like the Urban League. For those concerned worked out of the CAA offices. the art workshops of harlem sociation (CAA), committees of civic-minded citizens, about artists, such as the staff of the CAA, art workshops After President Roosevelt took office in March 1933, private foundations, universities, city libraries, municipal seemed a very good solution indeed. Not only would such several agencies of the federal government were estab- In the four years or so before the grand opening of the and state agencies, and, eventually, the federal a plan give teaching jobs to indigent artists, but it could lished to aid the arts, with a consequent shifting of both Harlem Community Art Center in December 1937, when government.33 also instill in adults of all ages an appreciation for the funds and personnel between private and state and fed- workshop activities and exhibition programs were con- arts. Many in favor of art workshops argued, like John eral agencies. This wreaks havoc with a historian’s desire solidated, there were four major operations where Har- Dewey, that one learns about art “by doing” and that to present a tidy chronology, but it also explains the fed- lem’s older teenaged students seriously interested in art, employing artists making art enriches not only the lives of the participating eral records of Charles Alston’s employment. Previously such as Lawrence, could attend workshops taught by in the depression individuals but the community as a whole. receiving a salary through CAA for his teaching duties at trained artists: (1) the studios of Augusta Savage, first at the Harlem Art Workshop held at the 135th Street Library, 163 West 143rd Street and later at 239 West 135th; (2) When the Depression deepened in the early 1930s, unem- he became a “librarian” on the Civil Works Administration the YMCA at 180 West 135th Street between Lenox and 34 ployment increased sharply, especially in Harlem. As organizations advocating federal payroll on January 19, 1934, but on April 1, 1934 7th Avenues; (3) the Harlem Art Workshop, at the 135th conditions worsened, Harlem civic leaders and organiza- for the arts was transferred, still as a “librarian,” to the Temporary Street branch of the New York Public Library, which held tions came to the aid of the homeless and the hungry. Emergency Relief Administration (TERA).43 Never theless, classes under the auspices of the Harlem Adult Educa- There are many examples of the creative partnerships The CAA, the professional association dedicated to pro- to Alston’s friends and to Jacob Lawrence, it was the tion Committee at both the library and later 270 West among the nongovernment organizations. For example, in moting opportunities for both artists and art historians CAA, as the dispensing agency, that deserved credit for 136th Street;48 and (4) Alston and Bannarn’s studio/ November 1930 New York City’s Emergency Work Bureau since its founding in 1912, was fortunate to have on staff Alston’s employment at the library.44 When the Federal workshop, launched in early 1934 at 306 West 141st joined with United Neighborhood Houses to set up a at that time the dynamic and tireless Audrey McMahon, Art Project was set up as an agency within the Works Street.49 Almost every artist in Harlem was connected workshop at the Urban League headquarters to make who was executive secretary, with Frances Pollak, a CAA Progress Administration in August 1935, with Holger Ca- with one or another of these studio workshops, and sev- clothing for the families of the unemployed. The Abyssin- volunteer, as her assistant. McMahon reasoned that ex- hill as director and McMahon in charge of the New York eral organizations and philanthropic foundations partici- ian Baptist Church announced that married men who hibiting artists’ work might generate needed income for office, all the artists—whether teachers, supervisors, mu- pated, not only the CAA, the Carnegie Corporation, the applied at the church on Mondays would be given jobs for them from sales. McMahon and Pollak secured grants ralists, or poster designers—were transferred to the WPA Harmon Foundation, and the Gibson Committee working three days a week at the rate of five dollars a day and that from the Carnegie Corporation to fund traveling exhibi- payroll. By that time federal funds were adequate to cope out of Mayor La Guardia’s office, but also the Urban the church planned to convert its community house to an tions in the United States and Canada and to award with the salaries of all the unemployed artists, although League, the Progressive Education Association, and sev- overnight shelter. Mayor La Guardia’s Committee on Relief scholarships, but the Carnegie Corporation pressed the funds to cover artists’ materials and workshop spaces eral state and federal agencies.50 brought packages of food to a public school near the West CAA to take an even more active role.37 The Carnegie still had to be obtained elsewhere. One of the first African American artists to open a­studio 135th Street police station for distribution. The Harlem Corporation agreed to supply the CAA with teaching Another organization working closely with the CAA was to students in Harlem was the dynamic sculptor Augusta branch of the Salvation Army fed a thousand people a day equipment; but as grateful as McMahon and Pollak were, the Harmon Foundation, which had mounted exhibitions Savage (Fig. 6).51 Ever since her return from study in Europe from its soup kitchen. By December the Abyssinian Baptist they realized they had only limited funds to pay artists’ of art by African American artists during the late 1920s in 1931 she had been teaching small classes in her base- Church had also set up a soup kitchen. Private individuals salaries. and early 1930s. During the mid-1930s, as the art historian ment studio at 163 West 143rd Street. 52 In December 1933, pitched in when they could. One grocer gave away vege- By this time, artists were increasingly visiting the CAA Mary Ann Calo has shown, the Harmon’s director, Mary the Carnegie Corporation gave the Urban League $1,500 tables to a needy family each week; a local resident, Sister offices to bring artworks for the exhibition program, and Beattie Brady, took an interest in the development of the to be regranted to Savage for “training and encouraging Minnie, pushed an old baby carriage filled with blankets McMahon heard their stories of hardship. She became workshops, often conferring behind the scenes with Alain young artists.”53 Since her salary was already being paid that she distributed to families down on their luck.35 convinced that more needed to be done.38 In 1932, ac- Locke or Frederick Keppel of the Carnegie Corporation on by the State Education Department, the funds were no

16 harlem’s artistic community in the 1930s harlem’s artistic community in the 1930s 17

1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 16-17 8/14/09 5:31:59 PM called Artists and Models, she would have wanted to have potential sitters/models there. In any event the exhibition and the sketches proved a success. Savage was an expert in generating publicity and buzz for her causes. A reviewer from the New York Herald Tri- bune understood her goals when reviewing the February exhibition: “The artists have confined themselves to sub- jects connected with their own race and have not at- tempted to ape the schools of their white colleagues. There are pictures of dice players, women dancers doing the ‘Lindy Hop’ and a multitude of other Harlem scenes with which the artists obviously are intimately acquainted.”60 To that reviewer, the artists had succeeded in capturing the local American scene. Savage could count on the New York Amsterdam News Fig 7 Augusta Savage, Gwendolyn Knight, to document her activities and to affirm her political goal, 1934–35. Painted 1 1 to give agency to Harlem’s own people in constructing the plaster, 18 ⁄2 x 8 ⁄2 x 9 Fig 6 Augusta Savage in her image of their community. The Harlem weekly devoted in. (47 x 21.6 x 22.9 studio, 1930s. U.S. National three half-columns to the show, praising it and reproduc- cm). Seattle Art Mu- Archives and Records Adminis- seum, Gif t of Gwendo- tration, Harmon Foundation ing some of the sketches: lyn Knight Lawrence. Collection. Photo: Susan A. Cole. At last, Harlem is going to have a chance to see itself as Har- doubt used to purchase equipment and materials. Called Savage organized in Harlem a large exhibition of her lem sees it. Anyway, as it is seen through the eyes of the of classes were held. The first was a Boys’ Work Program threescore art students who for more than two years have the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts, its official status students’ works, titled Artists and Models. Sponsored by for twenty-five younger children, instructed by William E. been attending classes at the Augusta Savage Studio. . . . was “the Harlem branch of the adult education project of the Urban League, it opened February 14, 1935, in the Artis; the YMCA exhibited their arts and crafts during The show, the first of its kind to be given in Harlem—or, as the University of the State of New York.”54 With this suppor t auditorium of the YWCA at 144 West 138th Street.58 For both March and May 1934. A second group—totaling far as is known, in any part of the city—will indeed attempt to and driven by burgeoning classes, Savage moved to larger opening night she dedicated a space to portraits of the ninety-five older students—had an especially enriched record the life of Harlem in every respect. It will run the picto- quarters in a former garage at 239 West 135th Street, arriving celebrities sketched on the spot by her students. rial gamut from success to failure, from Striver’s Row to Beale program. These were taught by Richard Lindsey under which she transformed into a studio space. These portraits were then considered part of the exhibi- Street, from the cathedral to the gin mill, from Sugar Hill to the auspices of the Y’s Activities Department in coopera- A forceful teacher, Savage continually championed her tion. One notable she took special pains to recruit as a the breadline.61 tion with the CAA. The author of a Harmon Foundation students, who included Gwendolyn Knight, Norman Lewis, portrait subject was Arthur Schomburg, the bibliophile, article on the Harlem workshops described the full cur- William Artis, Ernest Crichlow, Elton C. Fax, Marvin Smith, historian, and curator whose extensive collection of books The article also named the “prominent Harlemites” riculum: “Motion pictures on art and frequent trips to and, for a time, Kenneth B. Clark, who later turned to so- on Africa and African American history and culture had sketched from life at the exhibition, but Arthur Schom- museums and galleries help to build a background of art cial psychology.55 She arranged for their work to be ex- been purchased for the West 135th Street New York Public burg, whom Savage had written, was not among them. knowledge and experience which is both instructive and hibited in the spring of 1934 at the Metropolitan Museum Library. Behind Savage’s manipulations was her resolve This was the kind of event that the seventeen-year-old stimulating.”64 Exhibitions of this older group’s works of Art, where Lewis and Smith received prizes, and in the to advance the race in the field of culture, a cause to which Lawrence would have attended. Gwendolyn Knight was were held at the YMCA in May 1934 and February 1935. fall of 1934 at New York University.56 Although Lawrence Schomburg was most sympathetic. She wrote him one mentioned as one of the exhibiting students. Moreover, Lindsey saw the classes as a balm for his students as was not her student, he and his family lived just across month before the event: “The ‘Studio’ is planning to hold Alain Locke was named as one of the sponsors, along they endured the stresses of the times: “I have been hap- from her first, basement studio.57 On one of his frequent an exhibition . . . of the work of these students in an at- with many other notables.62 Older artists would have en- pily surprised to find that during the several years of the visits to her studio, he met Knight, who had posed for one tempt to gain for them the recognition and assistance of couraged the youngsters to attend such major Harlem depression, a great number of people are turning to arts of Savage’s sculpture busts (Fig. 7). Savage welcomed those who are interested in the cultural advancement of exhibitions as a necessary stimulant for young artists and crafts as an outlet for their mental strife. It is a pleas- everyone, especially young Lawrence, for she recognized the race. We will attempt to present Harlem to Harlem as learning to make art.63 ant experience to help people find themselves, and to find his extraordinary talent and enthusiastically promoted seen through the eyes of the Artist.”59 No doubt she wrote The second site for Harlem art workshops was the pleasure in creating things to make others happy.”65 him at every opportunity. to other potential sitters as well; since the exhibition was 135th Street branch of the YMCA, where two categories When the FAP was created in August 1935, as part of the

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1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 18-19 8/14/09 5:32:01 PM Fig 8 Display of masks at Harlem Art Workshop, 1933. Photo: James L. Allen. Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Fig 10 Jacob Lawrence (standing left) and other students with teacher at the Harlem Art Workshop, 1933. Photo: James L. Allen. U.S. Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. National Archives and Records Administration, Harmon Foundation Collection.

Fig 9 Jacob Lawrence (center) and other students at the Harlem Art Workshop, 1933. Photo: James L. Allen. Reproduced in “Art Study Fig 11 Henry W. Bannarn, ca. 1937. Courtesy of the Federal Art Project, Photographic Division collection, 1935–42, Archives of American through the Workshop,” in Negro Artists: An Illustrated Review of Their Achievements (New York: Harmon Foundation, 1935). U.S. National Art, Smithsonian Institution. Archives and Records Administration, Harmon Foundation Collection.

had found, in a former horse stable, at 306 West 141st what in awe of the older artists Ronald Joseph, who was WPA, the YMCA teachers’ salaries began coming from rence’s cohort: Georgette Seabrooke, who made charcoal Street. On April 1, 1934, he was transferred to the payroll intellectual and liked to talk, and Gwendolyn Knight, who that agency.66 drawings and lithographs, and Walter Christmas, who of TERA; on April 25 he was promoted to “art teacher.”76 had studied at one of the best private high schools in The third location, which Lawrence attended, was the produced textile prints. The reviewer also praised the Alston, called “Spinky” by his students and friends, Harlem, had gone to Howard University before the De- Harlem Art Workshop and Studio at 270 West 136th students’ painted papier-maché masks (Fig. 8).73 moved in with his friend Henry W. Bannarn, nicknamed pression made her attendance financially impossible, and Street, established in July 1933 by Mary Beattie Brady of When Wells returned to his teaching post at Howard “Mike,” a sculptor who had been living at the YMCA (Fig. was one of Augusta Savage’s students.82 Both Joseph the Harmon Foundation and Ernestine Rose, director of University in September, Charles Alston took his place at 11).77 Alston and Bannarn took the top two floors as and Knight would hire Lawrence to pose for them. The the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library.67 the Harlem Art Workshop, teaching both children’s and apartments, leaving the ground floor for a large workshop three of them would talk and visit museums. Younger art- Earlier, in 1932, the Carnegie Corporation had agreed to adult classes in the 1933–34 academic year. This was the studio.78 The Alston/Bannarn workshop, known as 306, ists who became his good friends were Bob Blackburn support an adult education project for the library that year when Lawrence returned to studying with Alston. became independent of the library’s Harlem Art Work- (Fig. 13) and Walter Christmas.83 would focus on music, dramatics, and creative work.68 Alston introduced clay modeling, the use of pastels, and shop, although the library still paid part of the rent as late The Alston/Bannarn studio—306—became not just a However, the actual library branch at 135th Street never design and lettering.74 It was probably at the spacious as April 1936.79 teaching studio but an informal gathering place for art- had adequate space for all the art classes and work- 270 West 136th Street location that the Harmon Founda- For the next two years, from about April 1934 to April ists and writers to discuss art and politics. Thirty years shops.69 With the sponsorship of the Harlem Adult Edu- tion commissioned photographs of the workshop activi- 1936, the 306 workshop received government support as later Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson pointed to cation Committee, the West 136th Street site, where for- ties that included Lawrence with a textile instructor and a teaching workshop, presided over by Alston and Ban- the cultural importance of 306 as “the main center in merly a nightclub had been, seemed to be a good also in the open workshop space (Figs. 9 and 10).75 narn, that included students such as Lawrence, Bob Harlem for creative black people in all the arts.”84 This solution.70 The instructor, James Lesesne Wells, and his Blackburn, and Sara Murrell.80 Because his mother had was no exaggeration, for Harlem, even though its popula- assistant, Palmer Hayden, offered classes in “drawing, not been particularly sympathetic to his art interests, tion had reached 204,000 in 1934,85 was a place where painting, sculpture, mask making, block printing, and li- 306 west 141st street studio Lawrence rented a corner of Bannarn’s downstairs loft for artists, civic leaders, and professional people moved in noleum cut work.”71 An exhibition of the students’ work two dollars a month to have a place to paint away from the same circles and socialized.86 was shown at the library in September and October In early 1934 Alston proposed the fourth major site for a home (Fig. 12).81 Lawrence and the younger artists benefited from being 1933.72 A reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune workshop. He persuaded his supervisors to allow him to Although shy and somewhat taciturn, Lawrence made in such a stimulating milieu. He later recalled with pleasure praised the artwork of two of the young artists in Law- move his classes to more accommodating quarters he friends with the artists and other students. He was some- this vital environment, so important for young artists

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1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 20-21 8/14/09 5:32:02 PM soaking up experiences and hearing the stories that older to take place in the South and the need for federal anti- creative people told: lynching laws.90 We can speculate that Claude McKay might have talked During the thirties there was much interest in Black history about his article on the 1935 Harlem riots for the Nation. and the social and political issues of the day—this was es- Norman Lewis might have brought back news of the pecially true at 306. It became a gathering place for many meetings of the Artists’ Union, held downtown. Aaron in the arts from Harlem and other areas of New York. I re- Douglas and Ernest Crichlow would have relayed discus- ceived not only an experience in the plastic ar ts (at 306)—but sions about the upcoming American Artists’ Congress, came in contact with older Blacks from the theater, dance, held in February 1936. Plans for the Harlem Artists Guild, literary, and music fields. At sixteen it was quite a learning organized in early 1935, would also have been discussed. experience—Katherine Dunham, Aaron Douglas, Leigh Whip- Other events of interest in 1935 would have included per, Countee Cullen, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Alain Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia and the preparations of Locke, William Attaway, O. Richard Reid—hearing them dis- cuss the topics of the day—as well as philosophy and creative Joe Louis (the “Brown Bomber”) to challenge the German processes pertaining to their own fields. Claude McKay was boxer Max Schnelling. Exhibitions held in 1935 outside a frequent visitor to 306. He had more than a great inter- Harlem that would have generated talk in the 306 group est in Africa, the philosophy of Garvey, U.N.I.A. [the United were the two antilynching art shows—one sponsored by Negro Improvement Association], etc. Augusta Savage was the John Reed Club and held at the ACA galleries and the also a strong Black nationalist and a champion of Black other sponsored by the National Association for the Ad- 87 women. vancement of Colored People (NAACP) and held at the Arthur U. Newton Galleries, which included the work of In subsequent interviews, Lawrence would mention other Alston, among others. arts people, such as Langston Hughes.88 He clearly en- joyed being a fly on the wall: “They may not have talked to me because I was too young, but I would hear their the impact of african art conversations with each other. And not just blacks, but people from outside the black community—very inter- The big exhibition event in 1935, besides the two anti- ested artists. . . . There was this interchange. And, being lynching shows, that would have interested Harlem art- a youngster, I guess subconsciously I was influenced by ists was the African art exhibition held that spring at the Fig 12 Jacob Lawrence in corner of studio at this. They would talk about their involvement in the arts Museum of Modern Art, which brought Harlemites down 306, 1930s. Photo: James L. Allen. U.S. Na- 89 tional Archives and Records Administration, and things like that.” At the age of sixteen he was learn- to West 53rd Street. Lawrence recalls seeing the MoMA Harmon Foundation Collection. ing that art and its making are intellectual endeavors that show with Charles Seifert, who led a group of artists and Fig 1 3 Bob Blackburn working on lithographic have a social context. students there. Seifert, a self-taught historian with a deep stone, 1930s. U.S. National Archives and Re- Discussions at 306 might have focused on the contro- knowledge of African history, owned a building at 313 cords Administration, Harmon Foundation Col- lection. versial aspects of contemporary theater, the social re- West 137th Street, which he called the Ethiopian School sponsibility of art, art as propaganda, and race as a com- of Research History. Here he made available to school- ponent of culture, to name a few of the issues. Salient teachers and students his extensive collection of African events of 1934 and 1935 no doubt elicited heated discus- sculpture and artifacts, books, manuscripts, and maps.91 sions: the Scottsboro Boys’ prosecution, the destruction Like Arthur Schomburg, Alain Locke, and others, Seifert by Nelson Rockefeller’s workmen of Diego Rivera’s Man felt it imperative that African Americans learn about their at the Crossroads mural at Rockefeller Center, articles in African heritage. Lawrence later described Seifert as “a the Crisis and Opportunity, Nancy Cunard’s controversial black nationalist who gave lectures in black history to any book Negro (1934), and Aaron Douglas’s murals installed interested groups. . . . One of his projects (besides the at the West 135th Street YMCA. Unemployment would collecting of books pertaining to black history) was to get have been a topic, as well as the lynchings that continued black artists and young people such as myself who were

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1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 22-23 8/14/09 5:32:03 PM interested in art . . . to select as our content black his- is perhaps not cultural inspiration or technical innova- an essay, “The Negro’s Americanism,” which declared tory. . . . For me, and for a few others, [Seifert] was a most tions, but the lesson of a classic background, the lesson that there was “not a trace” of African culture in Har- inspiring and exciting man, in that he helped to give us of discipline, of style, of technical control pushed to the lem.104 After considerable fieldwork, Herskovits changed something that we needed at the time.”92 Excited by his limits of technical mastery.”100 Locke wanted the Ameri- his mind and wrote The Myth of the Negro Past (1941), visit to the African show with Seifert’s group, Lawrence cans not only to learn from the discipline of the Africans which argued for retentions from Africa. To Locke, how- went home and attempted to carve two sculptures out of but also to be inspired by their art, as French artists in ever, the role of African art as a cultural inspiration wood.93 the circle of Picasso had been. seemed evident, and even strategically desirable, not be- Alain Locke (Fig. 14) initiated the discourse among Locke has often been misread, especially by writers cause of a biological essence but because of its formal African American intellectuals that pointed to African art during the 1930s, including James Porter and Meyer beauty. Locke’s admonition that African art be viewed as as the foundational source for European modernism. 94 He Schapiro, and even present-day scholars continue to mis- a useful model for African American artists became a emphasized the importance of the tribal arts of Africa in read him, insisting that Locke wanted to persuade young justification for elevating Africa as a source of creativity. his 1924 essay “A Note on African Art” for Opportunity African American artists to emulate—to copy—African art Young Romare Bearden, for his part, expressed views magazine and in his 1925 essay “The Legacy of the An- as part of a racialized project.101 This was far from the similar to Locke’s when he wrote in the December 1934 cestral Arts” for the anthology The New Negro.95 Following case, but such interpretations are understandable, given issue of Opportunity magazine that “modern art has bor- the lead of Paul Guillaume in France and Marius de Zayas Locke’s maddening penchant, as the literary historian rowed heavily from Negro sculpture. . . . Artists have in the United States, Locke asserted that modern art had Gene Andrew Jarrett has observed, for planting “his phil- been amazed at the fine surface qualities of the sculp- begun when French and German artists looked at and osophical feet on both sides simultaneously.”102 ture, the vitality of the work, and the unsurpassed ability absorbed “the idioms of African art.”96 To follow the lead Locke’s writings are impressive, however, not so much of the artists to create such significant forms.” The qual- of the first European modernists was sufficient reason for for their theories as for their tactics and strategies to ity that most appealed to contemporary artists, Bearden African Americans to pay attention to African art; and achieve recognition and stature for African American art- continued, was that “the African would distort his figures, besides, looking to Africa would encourage “race pride,” ists. In his Negro Art: Past and Present (1936) he elabo- if by so doing he could achieve a more expressive form. a term Locke often used strategically to counter feelings rated on his views: This is one of the cardinal principles of the modern art- of second-class citizenship among black people and to ist.” Like Locke, Bearden also inveighed against “the ti- boost morale. As Locke stated in “Legacy”: “There is in So we need this historical perspective [of African art] at the midity of the Negro artist of today.”105 the mere knowledge of the skill and unique mastery of the very outset to get at the true values of the Negro as artist. Gwendolyn Bennett was yet another writer of the Fig 14 Winold Reiss, Alain LeRoy Locke, ca. 1925. Pastel on artist 7 5 After achieving what is today recognized as great art and a arts of the ancestors the valuable and stimulating realiza- board, 39 ⁄8 x 21 ⁄8 in. (101.3 x 55 cm). The National Portrait Gallery, 1930s who thought exhibitions of African art an urgent tion that the Negro is not a cultural foundling without his Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Lawrence A. Fleischman and Howard tradition of great art in Africa, the Negro artist in America had matter for the cultural development of Harlem artists. 106 own inheritance. Our timid and apologetic imitativeness Garfinkle with a matching grant from the National Endowment for to make another start from scratch, and has not yet com- Herself a poet, artist, and writer, she followed Locke’s the Arts. pletely recaptured his ancestral gifts or recovered his ancient and overburdening sense of cultural indebtedness have, lead in her review of the exhibition Negro Art, held at the skills. Of course he must do this in the medium and manner let us hope, their natural end in such knowledge and re- 138th Street YWCA from March 17 to March 30, 1935, an of his adopted civilization and the modern techniques of alization.”97 Like others who thought about modern art, ideals; . . . it yields up, now this treasure, now that, to any- exhibition of contemporary Harlem art as well as African painting, sculpture and the craft arts. But when this develop- Locke promoted creative originality. one . . . armed with a capacity for personal choices.”98 art borrowed from the Schomburg Collection and pri­ ment finally matures, it may be expected to reflect something Locke’s ideas skirt the concept of “the usable past”—a Whereas Brooks’s idealism saw the past as a “store- of the original endowment, if not as a carry-over of instinct vate collections. Bennett first extended generous praise phrase Van Wyck Brooks first employed in early 1918. The house for apt attitudes and adaptable ideals,” Locke’s then at least as a formal revival of historical memory and the to the sixty-five established Harlem artists plus the stu- idea took hold during the 1920s among white writers urg- thinking was tactical. He saw a way past the amateurish, proud inspiration of the reconstructed past.103 dents of the workshop teachers Charles Alston, Rex Gor­ ing American artists to draw inspiration from the arts of tepid works young artists produced in imitation of art leigh, Richard W. Lindsey, William Artis, Louise E. Jef- colonial New England, Pennsylvania Shaker communities, school academic naturalism: encourage them to focus on Locke makes clear that he does not really believe in es- ferson, O. Richard Reid, Augusta Savage, and Grayson or the Spanish and Native American traditions of the the art of the African past as “one of the great fountain sentialist “instincts” but instead encourages a “revival” of Walker.107 She then observed the impact of the loans of Southwest. Brooks used the concept to jump-start creativ- sources of the arts of decoration and design.”99 African the usable past. African art and the context it had created for Harlem ity at a time, World War I, when many writers and artists art provided a model for young artists by teaching them At the time Locke was also responding to the debate artists working in an expressionist style: “This primitive had become disillusioned with Western civilization and to shun sentimentality and naive improvisation and to about whether aspects of African culture had been car- African art gives more pointed meaning to the naiveté of modernity: “Discover, invent a usable past. . . . The past is discipline themselves as artists: “What the Negro artist of ried into the New World. In 1925, the anthropologist Mel- some of the contemporary artists who have branched an inexhaustible storehouse of apt attitudes and adaptable to-day has most to gain from the arts of the forefathers ville J. Herskovits contributed to Locke’s The New Negro away from the more academic forms of painting and

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1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 24-25 8/14/09 5:32:05 PM sculpture. The conscious and studied distortion in ­African sponsored had rankled many; they felt it necessary to One compelling issue in 1935 was the government’s ferent to high school and was not getting along with his sculpture makes similar distinction among the works of mount their own shows, free from Mary Beattie Brady’s apparent refusal to assign African American artists as mother, with whom he still lived.124 Har­lem artists understandable. In short, African art, which preconceptions about what constituted good art by Af­ supervisors of the FAP/WPA projects. Guild members Thus on April 13, 1936, he reported to Camp Dix, New is reputed to have influenced a great number of the Euro- rican Americans. Bearden, in the same 1934 Opportu- also resented the requirement that artists “go to the Har- Jersey, and was assigned to Company 246. After three pean moderns, served as a worthy ancestry to the work nity article quoted above, spoke for many artists in crit­ mon Foundation to be certified” as professional artists.116 days, his company was transferred to Breeze Hill Camp, at of American Negro ar tists.” 108 Bennett, who in her letters icizing the Harmon Foundation: “There are quite a few According to Bearden and Henderson, the guild put in Wawayanda, near Middletown, New York. The camp, with to Alain Locke often solicited his advice, here echoed foundations that sponsor exhibitions of the work of place its own grievance committee and hence duplicated 1,400 black enrollees, was involved in a flood control proj- Locke’s own words, quoted above. Negro artists. However praise-worthy may have been the some of the activities that concerned the Artists’ Union, ect.125 In its February 8, 1936, issue the New York Amster- In this review, Bennett had another agenda—to pro- spirit of the founders the effect upon the Negro artist but this benefited both groups. Guild members could also dam News had glowingly described the camp as a mote the establishment of a permanent Harlem art cen- has been disastrous. Take for instance the Harmon Foun- be counted on to organize community protests and par- ter that the sponsors of the exhibition were advocating.109 dation. Its attitude from the beginning has been of a ticipate in picket lines.117 During the guild’s few years of modern mountain village of 84 buildings artistically grouped To underscore this need Bennett quoted from the exhibi- cod­dling and patronizing nature. It has encouraged the existence it continued to advocate for African American across the countryside. The buildings, including the five large tion’s brochure: artist to exhibit long before he has mastered the techni- artists.118 ones used for educational, health, recreational and administra- tive purposes, were outfitted by the carpentry and cabinet- cal equipment of his medium. By its choice of the type Alston, in particular, benefited from the political activ- making classes of the youths. This exhibit is Harlem’s response to the question “Does New of work it favors, it has allowed the Negro artist to ac- ism of the Harlem Artists Guild. As a result of the guild’s An extensive educational program is being advanced at the York need a city [art] center?” At the same time we hope that cept standards that are both artificial and corrupt.”112 pressure he was promoted, in January 1936, to supervis- camp. Academic, vocational and art classes are offered under it will serve to create a greater interest on the part of the To artists like Bearden, the CAA’s exhibition program had ing artist on the WPA payroll, the first African American the supervision of six educational advisors, six WPA instruc- community in the endeavors of young men and women who been severely compromised by its association with the given that title, and put in charge of a team of young art- tors and nineteen Reserve Corps officers. Four Negro doctors seek to live up to the artistic traditions of their race. These 119 Harmon Foundation. ists designing and painting murals for Harlem Hospital. protect the health of the enrollees. traditions are among the noblest in history, coming down Although most Harlem artists employed by the govern- At about the same time, in early 1936, the WPA withdrew from the amazing sculpture of the primitive African in wood, ment had joined the Artists’ Union downtown, many felt funding from 306. Alston and Bannarn scrambled to raise The camp also had instructors in arts and crafts and in stone, bronze and ivory to the magnificent paintings of Henry O. they needed another organization, based in their own funds to maintain their art center, and their landlord, im- music. The article, which ended with the names of camp Tanner. Harlem, no less than other sections of the city, needs neighborhood, that would more effectively represent their pressed with the activity there, “let the rent slide.”120 personnel, reads like a press release provided by camp to cultivate a greater appreciation of art. If this exhibit to some 126 degree accomplishes that end it will have served its pur- views and lobby for a large Harlem Art Community Cen- officials. 113 pose.110 ter. Augusta Savage spearheaded the founding of the The Amsterdam News, however, would scrutinize more Harlem Artists Guild in early 1935, along with Gwendolyn lawrence’s enlistment in the carefully the situation at Breeze Hill Camp in subsequent Bennett then reported on the remarks made by Alain Bennett, Aaron Douglas, Norman Lewis, Charles Alston, civilian conservation corps issues because of a murder that had occurred there on Locke at the opening preview of the Negro Art exhibition, and a handful of others. Aaron Douglas became presi- February 1.127 The alleged perpetrator, a Harlem youth, when he had urged the community to nurture its youth in dent, and Augusta Savage, vice president. By the sum- In early 1936, the eighteen-year-old Lawrence joined the claimed it had been a gun accident, but investigating au- the arts: “He stated that a community art center in Har- mer of 1937 the guild had grown to about ninety mem- Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a public works pro- thorities linked the murder to a reputed loan shark ring. lem should be a place not only for the exhibition of works bers and had begun mounting exhibitions that included gram set up by the Roosevelt administration to put un- For its next issue, the newspaper sent out its own inves- of art but a place in which artists might create.”111 Al- Jacob Lawrence.114 employed young men to work on conservation projects. tigative reporters, who discovered not so much crime as though at this time classes were being held at the various The preamble of the guild’s constitution stated: “We, When Roosevelt proposed the plan to Congress in March racism. On February 22 the paper reported that “hun- workshops, and both the YMCA and YWCA had hosted the artists of Harlem, being aware of the need to act col- 1933, he predicted that the benefits to the young men dreds of Negro youths, many of them Harlemites, have exhibitions on an ad hoc basis, many felt that Harlem lectively in the solution of the cultural, economic, social would go beyond their earning a paycheck: “More impor- deserted the Breeze Hill CCC camp . . . during the last merited a single center embracing all such activities. and professional problems that confront us, do hereby tant . . . than the material gains will be the moral and few weeks.” The racism and physical conditions the youth constitute ourselves an organization that shall be known spiritual value of such work.”121 The program, adminis- had encountered there encouraged their flight: “Accord- as the Harlem Artists Guild.” The goals were, first, to en- tered by the army, provided over 2.5 million jobs from ing to reliable information . . . hundreds of youths have harlem artists guild courage young talent; second, to foster “understanding 1933 until July 1942, when it was curtailed because of the left the camp because of intolerable conditions allegedly between artist and public thru education toward an ap- necessity for wartime military training.122 As of October imposed by white officials. Many of the deserting youths In 1935 Harlem might not yet have had an adequate preciation of art” and through “cooperation with agencies 1935, 49,000 African Americans, 2,058 of them New charge a ‘rule by intimidation,’ which includes exploita- community art center, but Harlem artists realized they and individuals interested in the improvement of condi- Yorkers, were enrolled in CCC camps.123 Lawrence most tion at work, beating of enrollees by State Police, impos- needed to form their own organization. The Harmon tions among artists”; and third, to raise “standards of liv- likely had high school classmates who were already in the ing of heavy fines for minor infractions and unpalatable Foundation’s exhibition in 1934 that the CAA had co- ing and achievement among artists.”115 program. Moreover, in early 1936 he was becoming indif- food in the mess halls.” The long article details these

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1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 26-27 8/14/09 5:32:06 PM allegations and provides names. Working conditions were payrolls, perhaps because he was getting sculpture com- which is obvious because I believe that subtleties are also a factor: “Thirty of the youths left in a body after missions that helped pay the bills.134 During 1936 Bannarn more powerful.”139 By saying “All art is propaganda” Ban- they charged that they were ordered to work in water had two major commissions, one from Howard University narn was no doubt referring to the famous dictum of above their knees in 14 degrees below zero weather.” An- to sculpt a bust of Frederick Douglass in black marble and W. E. B. Du Bois that “all art is propaganda and ever must other complaint was that African American WPA instruc- another to provide a sculpture for a Harlem housing proj- be despite the wailing of the purists. . . . I do not care a tors were segregated and housed in a recreation hall with ect.135 Elton Fax recalled Bannarn’s impact on the younger damn for any art that is not used for propaganda.”140 no running water or toilets. Another allegation foreshad- artists: “Bannarn was magnetic. Young artists gravitated Lawrence certainly adopted Bannarn’s mission. When owed the “battle royal” described in the first chapter of toward him like bees around a hive. Jake Lawrence, Roy in 1937 Lawrence decided to paint the narrative of Tous- Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: “The youths also charge De Carava, Bob Blackburn were among them. Billye Oliver saint L’Ouverture, he too showed determination to teach that the white officers exploit them by making them go to who liked to draw and paint was a frequent visitor to the the history of African Americans, to give back to the com- other camps to box against each other for the amuse- studio and she worked seriously while her husband, Sy, munity, and to create an art that showed his roots and ment of white fight fans.”128 One can well imagine Harlem was on the road with the band of Jimmy Lunceford. School- had universal appeal. youths leading the desertions, since the Amsterdam teacher Dorothy Funn, writer William Attaway (Let Me News was delivering the paper to the camp. Breathe Thunder), painter Aaron Douglas, and Claude The Amsterdam News reported in the following week’s McKay were also habitués of the studio at 306 W. 141st the harlem 136 issue, on February 29, that enrollees had staged a food Street.” Bob Blackburn recalled that “everyone loved” community art center strike to protest a banquet held exclusively for white of- Bannarn, who was “the stronger influence as a person” ficers and their friends. The paper also charged the Mid- and “a better artist” than Alston.137 Meanwhile, during 1937 plans were unfolding for a per- dletown townspeople with racism, reporting that African Bannarn’s insistence on studying the history of African manent Harlem Community Art Center. Civic leaders and American youths were banned from the town skating rink, Americans in the United States and his firm belief that artists in Harlem had promoted the idea for years.141 Af- restricted to the balcony of the local movie theater, and artists should contribute their talents for the benefit of ter Holger Cahill took the job as head of the WPA/FAP in prohibited from standing inside the train station (on society as a whole would have touched a chord in Law- August 1935, he hired Audrey McMahon to continue the freezing February nights) to wait for taxis to take them rence. In November 1937, Marvel Cooke, a reporter for work she had done for the CAA, but now she would be back to Breeze Hill Camp. Another charge was that the the New York Amsterdam News, was stunned to find in director of the New York FAP office.142 As an advocate for enrollees were prevented from reading copies of the New Bannarn’s studio sculpted heads of the Arctic explorer artists in New York, McMahon knew that Harlemites York Amsterdam News! The newspaper assured its read- Matthew Henson, the author and abolitionist Frederick wanted to establish a comprehensive cultural center that 129 ers that it had called for a federal investigation. Fig 15 Chow, 1936. Graphite on paper, 16 x 20½ in. (40.6 x 52.1 cm). Douglass, and the actor Richard B. Harrison, famous for would offer free art and music classes; hold speaking Lawrence and his mother no doubt knew of the Jim Spelman College Museum of Art, Atlanta; Gift of Catherine Waddell. his portrayal of “de Lawd” in the popular play The Green events for writers, artists, and cultural figures; and mount Crow conditions awaiting him at Breeze Hill Camp and Pastures. Bannarn commented to the reporter that he exhibitions of the work of both students and professional Middletown. But he had already stopped attending Com- wanted to address the needs of African American chil- artists. Such a center would offer more to African Ameri- merce High School in February 1936,130 and the fate of selves in, such as stints in the infirmary and grabbing for dren: “They know about George Washington . . . and not cans than the art galleries that the Municipal Art Com- the 306 classes was up in the air. This would be a new food in the mess hall (Fig. 15). He did not stay the usual about Crispus Attucks—about Admiral Peary and not mittee had set up in midtown Manhattan.143 experience for him, and the CCC would send $25 of his six months but came home in less than four, on August Matt Henson. That is not as it should be. I want to be a Mrs. E. P. Roberts, chair of the Harlem Art Commit­ monthly paycheck back to his mother to help her meet 6, 1936.133 Nevertheless, the experience marked his pas- means of them knowing the Attuckses, the Hensons, the tee, spoke up for the center. She wrote to Cahill praising expenses for the family.131 As in all of his interviews, Law- sage to adulthood. Pushkins and the Douglasses. I will not rest until they the work of African Americans at a YWCA exhibition rence was loath to admit to any bad experiences he had do. . . . I want to contribute in the field of art to the cul- and ending with the plea, “I am writing you to ask you encountered. He later told Aline Louchheim Saarinen, “It ture of the Negro in the same manner that the subjects I to make a direct Federal grant to finance this proj- 144 was a good experience, physically hard, but I’m glad I return to harlem portray have contributed to Negro culture and the gen- ect.” Cahill replied on December 13, 1935, that he went through it. I learned the feel of lots of things—of a eral culture of America.”138 was “very much interested in the idea” of a center in shovel, of how it feels to throw dirt up above your shoul- By the time Lawrence returned from his CCC sojourn, Bannarn also let the reporter know his view on “propa- Harlem and that he wanted to help. He explained: “The ders, for instance. Like any experience, it had things in it Bannarn had taken over from Alston the duties of teaching ganda art.” He admired it but would not do it himself: “It Federal Art Project, however, by Executive Order of the you never forget for painting.”132 Either at the camp or the students—informally, one assumes, since government is all right to know the realities, but we don’t always want President is not permitted to make grants to individuals later, Lawrence made several drawings that show the funding was no longer available to pay a teaching salary to have them staring us boldly in the face. All art is pro- or organiza­tions. Our program is limited to employing art­ somewhat humorous situations recruits would find them- there. At that time Bannarn did not show up on government paganda, of course, but personally, I don’t like anything ists from the relief rolls and a certain percentage of needy

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1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 28-29 8/14/09 5:32:07 PM unemployed artists who may not be on the relief rolls.” staff. Augusta Savage, as director, and Gwendolyn Ben- He suggested that she try to interest Mayor La Guardia nett, as assistant director, set up classes for both children and the Municipal Art Committee in the project.145 There and adults in “painting, drawing, sculpture, metal work, was an obvious need for community art centers across pottery and ceramics, hook-rug making and weaving, the country, but the movement did not get rolling until printed textile design, dress design, wood and leather Cahill put Thomas Parker in charge of working out partner- craft.” Music instruction was also offered (Fig. 16).148 In ships with community groups. In 1936–37, thir ty-eight FAP May 1937 Bennett could report to the New York Amster- community centers sprang up, with four of them estab- dam News that the center had registered 1,627 students, lished in New York City—midtown Manhattan, Harlem, with over half of them in the painting and drawing Brooklyn, and Queens.146 The funding for such centers, classes.149 The West 123rd Street space soon became as mentioned above, was shared by various agencies. The cramped, so a new space was found to house the art FAP paid the artists’ wages, expenses for activities such activities, at 290 Lenox Avenue, where 7,500 square feet as exhibitions, and equipment. As was the case with other could comfortably accommodate concerts, dance perfor- WPA/FAP workshops, payments by citizens’ groups or mances, and art demonstrations and exhibitions as well donations by local government would cover office and art as studios and workshops for “painting, sculpture, metal- supplies and rent. work, pottery, commercial and graphic art and other Fig 16 Savage with her staff of the Harlem Community Art Center, 1930s. Front row: Zell Ingram, Pemberton West, Augusta Savage, 150 By January 23, 1937, the New York Amsterdam News crafts.” Robert Pios, Sarah West, Gwendolyn Bennett. Back row: Elton Fax, Rex Gorleigh, Fred Perry, William Artis, Francisco Lord, Louise Jef- could report that plans were moving ahead: “School of- During December the New York Amsterdam News re- ferson, and Norman Lewis. Gwendolyn Bennett Photograph Collection, 1930s. Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for ficials of the city are pressing plans for a cultural center ported weekly on the progress of the renovations of the Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. in Harlem, which they hope will serve as the ‘spiritual Lenox Avenue site. After several delays, on December 20, Fig 17 Gwendolyn Bennett, two instructors, Augusta Savage, and Eleanor Roosevelt, and at the opening of the Harlem Community Art Center, December 1937. Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, focus’ of the community.” Joseph M. Sheehan, associate 1937, the Harlem Community Art Center had its grand Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. superintendent of schools, drafted a plan for Mayor La opening, with a special afternoon preview arranged for Guardia’s office to move such a center into the YWCA Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, the president’s wife (Fig. 17), also building at 124th Street and Lenox Avenue. Sheehan’s plan attended by Audrey McMahon and Holger Cahill. The called for a budget of $100,000 for equipment and staffing speakers at the opening included A. Philip Randolph, the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Bennett, as energetic as associated with the Center.” Her politics and optimism costs. Sheehan echoed the sentiments of other civic lead- chairman of the Harlem Citizens’ Sponsoring Committee Savage and experienced as a writer, took charge first as come through in her conclusion that the center expresses ers championing a community art center: “There is much and president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; acting director and later as director of the center. “a new and better world!” Bennett, like Savage, was a undeveloped talent—ar tistic, musical and literar y—in Har- Holger Cahill, director of FAP, based in Washington, D.C.; In the late 1930s Bennett wrote up a report on the cen- tireless supporter of the arts and culture in Harlem— lem. . . . All that is needed to make it flourish is a suitable the author and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson; ter’s progress in which she bragged about its accom- putting her work for the center above her own creative center, properly equipped, where capable and sympa- and Augusta Savage, the center’s director.151 Gwendolyn plishments in its first sixteen months of operation. From work.154 thetic leadership will foster and develop the talents of the Bennett, the assistant director and then also president of November 1937 through March 1939, 2,467 children and Bennett also encouraged young Lawrence by including people, where oppor tunity is provided for musical, ar tistic the Harlem Artists Guild, also spoke. Charles C. Seifert, adults were enrolled in art classes, and close to twenty- his paintings in one of the first exhibitions of the Harlem and literary endeavor, where there may be a suitable li- the specialist in African art, was still praising the speeches four thousand children and adults had participated in Community Art Center, held in February 1938.155 The sup- brary depicting racial ideas and progress so as to stimu- delivered at the opening when he wrote his book The activities, lectures, and demonstrations, with many thou- portive community that developed around the center, as late the population to high achievement.”147 Progressives Negro’s or Ethiopian’s Contribution to Art, published in sands more attending exhibitions and lectures. The cen- well as other people and institutions, constituted a move- like Sheehan assumed that teaching the history of African 1938. Seifert interpreted the event as marking “the cross- ter’s impact on its own staff had been especially gratify- ment that would nourish Lawrence in the late 1930s and American achievement was integral to advancing the roads of the old and new philosophies in art” for African ing to her: “A new understanding of the value and 1940s. In the next chapter we will turn to specific individu- cause of racial equality. American artists.152 meaning of art teaching in the cultural scheme of things als who helped him reach a professionalism in these years On March 10, 1937, the WPA music-art center that The community finally had a center to answer its has been engraved on the consciousness of every person that would guarantee his lifetime reputation. Sheehan envisioned was established at 1 West 123rd needs. Besides Savage and Bennett, the staff consisted Street opposite Mt. Morris Park. Attending the gala open- of three office workers, twenty teachers, of whom ten ing were Mrs. Henry Breckenridge, chair of the Municipal were African American, and artists’ models.153 Savage, Art Committee, and Ellen S. Woodward, an administrator however, was about to embark on a leave of absence for the WPA/FAP, which was paying the salaries of the from the center to work on a sculpture commissioned for

30 harlem’s artistic community in the 1930s harlem’s artistic community in the 1930s 31

1p.Hills_Painting Harlem Modern.indd 30-31 8/14/09 5:32:08 PM 2 patrons and the making of a professional artist

He is particularly sensitive to the life about him; the joy, the suffering, the weakness, the strength of the people he sees every day. . . . Still a very young painter, Lawrence symbolizes more than any one I know, the vitality, the seriousness and promise of a new and socially conscious generation of Negro artists.

charles alston, brochure for Jacob Lawrence exhibition (1938)

What impresses me about Lawrence is his ability to combine social interest and interpretation . . . with a straight art approach. . . . His work has a stirring social and racial appeal.

alain locke, recommendation to the Julius Rosenwald Fund (1940)

I feel very strongly that Mr. Lawrence has what it takes to succeed. He has developed no attitude, is utterly in- terested in his work, has a definite objective toward which he is struggling, and he always is willing to give credit where he feels it is due.

mary beattie brady, letter to Charles Alston (1941)

I want you to look at the work of Jacob Lawrence, a Negro painter about 23 years old—who has the most power- ful and original painting talent I’ve encountered anywhere in the country.

jay leyda, letter to Richard Wright (1941)

A precocious young artist with a knack for design and a and excitement for young Lawrence, and he absorbed the curiosity about the life around him, Lawrence was fortu- experiences and thrived in the artistic milieu that Harlem nate to have mentors such as Charles Alston, Henry Ban- offered. During the late 1930s his conceptual powers ma- narn, and Augusta Savage. He was also welcomed by oth- tured, he mastered his techniques, and he began to exhibit ers as a participant in the vital art movement taking place his art professionally. in Harlem. At this time civic groups, journalists, church n ministers, the city of New York, and the federal govern- ment, along with artists and educators, realized how much In August 1936, when Lawrence returned to Harlem from both the individual and the community stood to gain from the CCC camp in Middletown, New York, he moved back the teaching, exhibition, and appreciation of art and its into his routine of painting in his corner space at Charles history. The early to mid-1930s had been years of struggle Alston and Henry Bannarn’s studio at 306 West 141st

3 Fig 18 Moving Day (Dispossessed), 1937. Tempera on paper, 30 x 24 ⁄4 in. (76.2 x 62.9 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy DC Moore Gallery, New York.

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